A dataset of monthly precipitation with resolution of 1 km in China from 1960 to 2020

Precipitation data are greatly valuable in theoretical research and practical application, and have been widely used in hydrological forecasting, agricultural production, ecological protection and other fields. China has a vast territory with large topographic fluctuations, and most meteorological stations are located in densely populated plain areas. Due to the low density of stations, there is a lack of precipitation observation data in some areas such as mountainous areas. Therefore, it is necessary to use the interpolation method to establish high-precision precipitation datasets. Based on the precipitation monitoring data from more than 2,400 meteorological stations on the ground from 1960 to 2020, we used the climate data spatial interpolation software ANUSPLIN to obtain a dataset of monthly precipitation interpolation with a resolution of 1 km in China. According to the comparison between the dataset and the measured precipitation data as well as the hydrological yearbook data in China released by the CRU and Northwest University of agriculture and forestry science and technology, this dataset has the characteristics of high accuracy, high resolution and long time series, with great potential in scientific research and application.